''{{w|Home Alone}}'' is a popular movie 1990 film in which the child protagonist Kevin McCallister (portrayed by {{w|Macaulay Culkin}}) is accidentally left alone in his house when his family goes on vacation, and has to thwart a burglary all by himself. In the movie, McCallister comes up with a variety of ingenious traps and schemes (usually involving {{w|jury rig|jury-rigged}} toys and household items) to harass, injure and eventually incapacitate the burglars, which was the film's defining feature. The film spawned a {{w|Home Alone (franchise)|series of sequels}} (4 sequels as of 2012, the first of which also starring Culkin) all with a similar premise to the original.

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''{{w|Home Alone}}'' is a popular 1990 film in which the child protagonist Kevin McCallister (portrayed by {{w|Macaulay Culkin}}) is accidentally left alone in his house when his family goes on vacation, and has to thwart a burglary all by himself. In the movie, McCallister comes up with a variety of ingenious traps and schemes (usually involving {{w|jury rig|jury-rigged}} toys and household items) to harass, injure and eventually incapacitate the burglars, which was the film's defining feature. The film spawned a {{w|Home Alone (franchise)|series of sequels}} (4 sequels as of 2012, the first of which also starring Culkin) all with a similar premise to the original.

The scene depicted in the strip is an adaptation of an iconic scene from the first movie which was used heavily in advertising where McCallister hangs two paint cans from string above the staircase and when the burglars try to climb up and get him, he lets the cans swing down and hit them in the face.

The scene depicted in the strip is an adaptation of an iconic scene from the first movie which was used heavily in advertising where McCallister hangs two paint cans from string above the staircase and when the burglars try to climb up and get him, he lets the cans swing down and hit them in the face.

Revision as of 17:06, 25 January 2013

Explanation

Home Alone is a popular 1990 film in which the child protagonist Kevin McCallister (portrayed by Macaulay Culkin) is accidentally left alone in his house when his family goes on vacation, and has to thwart a burglary all by himself. In the movie, McCallister comes up with a variety of ingenious traps and schemes (usually involving jury-rigged toys and household items) to harass, injure and eventually incapacitate the burglars, which was the film's defining feature. The film spawned a series of sequels (4 sequels as of 2012, the first of which also starring Culkin) all with a similar premise to the original.

The scene depicted in the strip is an adaptation of an iconic scene from the first movie which was used heavily in advertising where McCallister hangs two paint cans from string above the staircase and when the burglars try to climb up and get him, he lets the cans swing down and hit them in the face.

The films represent a classic story of the underdog (in this instance, a child) defeating a much stronger opponent (the burglars) through his own ingenuity. In this strip, Randall suggests rebooting the franchise (where a new film is made that begins a series fresh, ignoring the previous continuity of the series, and usually with some changes to update or improve the series), which has become very popular and successful over 2004–2014 (with notable examples in Bond and Marvel franchises). Randall suggests that the reboot "reverse" the ages so that the protagonist is an adult and the burglars are children. This obviously wouldn't work well as a movie because it would mean an adult man using his much greater strength and abilities to harm children. Randall also suggests that, as it has been more than two decades since the original film, Culkin could again play the protagonist in the reboot, as he is now in his 30s.

Transcript

[Aged man standing at the head of a flight of stairs. A paint can on a rope is swinging into a child at the foot of the stairs. A child on the floor is in a semi-fetal position and crying.]

Discussion

Don't you think he also makes a reference to Django Unchained? Because it looks last the last scene of Django Unchained, which is a soft of "reboot" of Django, starring an old Franco Nero. 217.162.253.103 11:40, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

This made me laugh more than it should have. 2.120.136.128 08:17, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I know. I saw the panel and thought "Okay, that's interesting," and then moused over. Very nice. 76.122.5.96 10:17, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

The only place this movie would work is at a Rube-Goldberg convention. Where all attendees are dads. 220.224.246.97 17:55, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Could that reboot suggestion also be a comment on the reboot of the Star Trek series where all the characters we know and love now never existed in that universe? Maybe some series should not be rebooted. Katya (talk)

"reboot of the Star Trek series where all the characters we know and love now never existed" - which reboot was that? Pretty sure Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scotty and all the rest of the crew were there in the reboot... TheHYPO (talk) 17:10, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

I think Katya's implying that she likes some of the Next-Generation or maybe Deep Space Nine characters. It's not clear from the continuity of the rebooted Star Trek movies whether Picard, Riker, Data, LaForge, Sisko, Dax, O'Brien, Garak etc. also still exist in the "new" (rebooted) timeline, since even if they did, they wouldn't be around at the time of Kirk, Spock and Bones. It's entirely possible that the timeline changes shown in the new film would lead to a universe in which these characters are never born or never enter Starfleet. That would be a shame! 71.201.53.130 19:16, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

No, Katya meant what she said. In order to preserve the continuity established by the original series' canon, the rebooted film (mild SPOILER ALERT!) saw the villain and one of the main characters travel back in time, altering characters' backstories and interactions with each other. While therefore all of the events of the original series still "happened," the unfortunate side effect is that all of the characters' histories were/will be overwritten by the events of the new timeline -- to say nothing of the "future" series yet to come in the Star Trek universe. As an example of the disparity, Wikipedia splits the Star Trek universe into its separate timelines in their template boxes. --71.229.88.206 03:00, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

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